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5 Points to Reduce Restaurant Employee Turnover

According to the National Restaurant Association, restaurant turnover was 62.6% in 2013. Losing staff is an expensive and irritating fact of life in the restaurant industry. You can gripe about it, resist it, and/or be a victim of it. Or, you can embrace the fact and plan for it. I have tried both techniques and have found that the latter works best for me. Here are some good practices for mitigating restaurant turnover.

Scheduling:

Restaurant employees are very concerned about their schedules. Many are students or have second or third jobs that require their schedules to be precise. And if/when there are issues with employee schedules, staff members can become very disgruntled quickly. I recommend paying attention to your staff’s scheduling needs and abide. If you need people to work on Sundays-hire people who can work on Sundays. Also, create and utilize a written system that allows employees to make requests for days off. It is also very important to make sure the schedule is posted a week before it goes into effect. This gives staff adequate time to plan their personal and work lives. Too many restaurants post the schedule the day before it goes into effect. Restaurants that are late posting their schedules then enjoy the ensuing chaos of staff not showing up for their shifts. Another good practice is, as employees are getting ready to leave, say something like “Good job today! When do you work again?” Then physically walk over to the schedule with them. This ensures that they didn’t mis-read or forget to look at their schedule.

Training:

When it comes to your staff, you reap what you sow. So don’t skimp on this important investment. Training is the foundation new people use to grow into being great performers. If you don’t train well, your chances of creating great performers is very low.

Management/People Skills:

Obviously, one way to mitigate a high turnover rate is to treat your staff well. This doesn’t mean you have to bend over backwards for them. Just don’t treat them poorly. Part of your job as a manager is to hire, train, develop, facilitate and cheer for your staff. Period. If you aren’t doing any of those things, you are failing.

Execute:

Nobody likes to play for a losing team. You can reduce turnover by simply doing a good job. The best performers will gravitate toward success.

Exit Interviews:

Finally, if good people give you notice to leave; find out why. It won’t always be your fault and there won’t always be anything that can be done about it. But that knowledge is powerful. Use it to your benefit.

If these steps are put in place, turnover will be as low as possible for the restaurant.